In Perspective
by Anise Nalci
Summary: A year later, and their feelings remain the same. Gwevin. First B10AF fic, so be nice! D


In Perspective

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**Sometimes she blamed herself, blamed herself for not being enough to keep him from slipping back into that darkness from whence he came from. **

She was sixteen and she was still as enamored with him as ever. Last year, when she met him again, after five years, and he suddenly sprung back into their lives, trying to run away from his turbulent past (although she could have told him that dealing in illegal activities would be the worst way to forget all the evil he had done), she secretly admired him, for developing a conscience – he'd come a long way from the sociopathic eleven year old she knew.

She knew how difficult it must have been. He'd never had a proper parental figure as a child and as a child he'd been attacked and tormented, and led a childhood full of stuff kids only dream of in nightmares. Kill or be killed – that had been the code he lived by. Hurt or be hurt. He'd never known true kindness; not until he'd encountered them. By then, he emanated anger, fury and unhappiness – an abandoned, misunderstood and almost grotesque child seeking to get revenge with the world for all of its trials and injustice, and not knowing there was another way to live, not knowing there were good people – it was a world every child ought to have belonged to.

It was amazing how easily he gave up all the anger he used to have, all the hatred he bore for the universe, and tried to go straight. It was so much easier to be bad, to lose control of your emotions, to allow wicked ways to pass, than to be good and in control of all the emotions that could hurt people – emotions that too often overcame him whenever he thought of the past.

When she met him, she thought she could deliver him from that past. He deserved that sort of peace, anyway.

She was surprised by how rapid that feeling of pity and admiration turned into complete infatuation, and then into love…

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**The past wasn't something he could run from, no matter how much he tried to forget it; it was something that tainted him, and he wouldn't let it taint anyone else – her least of all.**

He saw her again after five years, when he was sixteen and still living the luxe life with the Camaro and cash (lots of it) from his (illegal) tech deals. He was surprised, to say the least. She was – more grown up, more mature (ahem) physically (he had to admit she turned out well). As for her behavior – well, she was very different from when she was ten – tomboyish and headstrong. She was confident and feminine (he suspected that she knew it was easier to get things done when she played up the feminine side so that guys would get things done for her, rather than be all tomboyish and boss guys – i.e. Ben – and in the end getting nothing done), and she seemed more – emotional? Yet she was still one who empathized with suffering and plight.

She became his angel, and he became her shadow.

He thought he was being discreet, when he looked at her a second longer than he should have been, when he stopped being nonchalant and instead was overly concerned (although darn it! He wasn't even _supposed_ to be feeling this way). In his mind, he was still able to taint her, and though there were times he wanted to leave, even despite his resolution, he couldn't seem to force himself out of her life. And even though he was relieved that this – feeling – did not go unrequited (although he berated himself when Gwen confronted him about his 'mooning' over her), he couldn't see them together. It was at times like this that he couldn't forget that he used to be a horror, that he had been evil, that he used to want to kill others – to kill good people like Ben and his Grandpa Max and _her._ How could she forget this? How could anyone forget this? Was she a fool?

But then again, he was the biggest fool for keeping himself in this purgatory, being so close to her and yet so far…

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**Author's Note: **Me. Bored. Me. Write. First B10AF Fanfic.

You. Nice. You. Review.

=P


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